I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

When you are a high school girl, there is nothing more miraculous than a high school boy.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

And I am pretty sure that's the point of reading fiction -- so someone else can say in a way you never would have something you recognize immediately.

The big occurrences in life, the serious ones, have for me always been nearly impossible to recognize because they never feel big or serious. In the moment, you have to pee, your arm itches, or what people are saying strikes you as melodramatic or sentimental, and it's hard not to smirk. You have a sense of what this type of situation should be like - for one thing, all-consuming - and this isn't it. But then you look back, and it was that; it did happen.

I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.

The better you learn to take care of yourself, the less you settle for being around people who can't or won't treat you as well as you're accustomed.